1. You can always try again – Yes this may be true, but a mother will still want to grieve for the child they never got to know.

2. At least you already have ‘x number’ of beautiful children – The children a woman has do not replace the one(s) she has lost, it does not diminish the love she has for them or imply she is not grateful for what she’s got. She is just grieving a loss which in any other circumstances is accepted as being normal.

3. At least it was early on – I’m not saying that it isn’t worse later in pregnancy but being told this can make a woman feel as if she has no right to grieve as others suffer more. Anyone who suffers a miscarriage at any point should not be made to feel that their loss is not important.

4. It wasn’t really a baby yet – Fetus, cells whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t matter. When you find out you’re pregnant it’s a baby, you plan things for your baby and you already start feeling like a mother to your child.

5. It’s probably for the best – Best for who?

6. It won’t happen again – This is very well meaning, but how do you know? Some women suffer from recurrent miscarriages and being reassured that everything will be fine next time might back fire on you.

7. It was gods will – Now I’m not even slightly religious so comments like this are like water off a ducks back to me but I understand that many people are. Being told that somebody else didn’t want you to have this baby and wanted to make you suffer cannot be a nice feeling. Allow the sufferer to come around to this conclusion in their own time if they choose to do so.

8. It’s normal/ It’s common/ It happens – This is true but as it’s still quite a taboo subject nobody goes into planning a pregnancy with the thought that it would end in miscarriage. It is likely that the woman will feel anything but ‘normal’.

The only things you can say really is ‘i’m sorry’, and let them know that you are there if they need you.

I Never Held You: Miscarriage, Grief, Healing and Recovery

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With my most recent miscarriage (my 3rd) I was first in denial, trying to tell myself that it was implantation, some people still have periods when pregnant…etc…until the crippling pain took over and there was no denying that I was miscarrying again. Then I just went into auto pilot, it all took place in some kind of blur, I called the Dr and explained she made me a hospital appointment at the EPU, I went I was tested and scanned, my baby was gone. They spouted there miscarriage statistics at me gave me a leaflet (which was an improvement on last time) and I went home.

I got home and read my leaflet – yes a leaflet -and that was my entire aftercare package. I was not offered the opportunity to speak to anyone, not that I cared at the time. I was in shock, even though I knew I had miscarried even before I got to the appointment.

What I don’t understand is why there isn’t any special department or clinic that deals with women who have miscarried. I have many questions – and no one was there to answer them.

Maybe a follow up appointment with a Dr, a couple of weeks later, to give you time to adjust and get your thoughts together. Like most ladies who miscarry, I wanted to find a reason why, but I guess I’ll never know.

Over time I have come to terms with our losses and although it’s been a very sad time, there must have been a reason why the pregnancy wasn’t to be. We have to look to the future – and that’s another area where aftercare would have helped.

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A clogged milk duct should be taken care of as soon as you notice it or else you could be risking a serious breast infection called mastitis. There are many ways to rid your breast of the clog. You should nurse as often as you and your baby possibly can. While nursing you should change positions often so that all of the milk ducts in your breast have a chance to empty. Massaging the affected area during nursing will help the clog work it’s way out of the milk ducts. You have to massage pretty hard but it’s well worth it in the end. Applying warm, moist heat to the area will also help. You can do this by wetting a simple washcloth with hot water and laying it on the breast, soaking in a warm bath or take a hot shower.

Thrush is another common breastfeeding pain that many nursing mothers have to deal with. Thrush is caused by Candida, a yeast-like fungus that grows in dark, damp places and is found in the birth canal of most women. It can be passed to the baby at birth and then passed to your breasts during nursing. Thrush is not a serious infection but it can be very painful. Signs of having thrush are small red or white patches on the breast, red or purple nipples and sharp, shooting pain in the breast. A lot of times pain is the only sign of infection. Some breastfeeding moms that are infected with thrush will also have a vaginal yeast infection at the same time. The baby may also show signs of having a diaper rash when the two of you are suffering from thrush.

To rid yourself of thrush you will have to go through an extensive cleansing period. You will need to treat both mother and baby, even if only one is showing signs of thrush. If you don’t treat both mother and child then the thrush can continue to be transferred back and forth between mother and baby. Best thing to do is visit your Dr so that he/she can prescribe something for you and baby. If the thrush persists for more than two weeks be sure to let your doctor know. He/She can prescribe you a different medication that may work more effectively on your type of yeast.

With thrush you will want to boil any and all rubber nipples and pacifiers that your baby uses. Boil them all every day for 20 minutes. Boil all of your breast pump parts daily for 20 minutes. Also wash your bras in hot, soap water everyday, making sure to rinse well.

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Engorgement is a very common problem for breastfeeding mothers. It does not matter if you have had one child or five, engorgement can still occur. Engorgement can be very painful for many women. It usually occurs when your milk first “comes in”, turning from colostrum to real milk. It can also occur when your breasts are not getting emptied during nursing sessions with your baby. Engorgement can occur when your baby starts sleeping through the night and skips nursing sessions and even when you decide to wean your little one. Engorgement can cause swollen, tender breasts that feel very heavy and uncomfortable. Some people describe engorgement as feeling like having a rock in your breasts. If engorgement isn’t relieved soon it can lead to clogged milk ducts and even a breast infection called mastitis. Engorgement can sometimes become so severe that your little one may not be able to latch on properly in order to breastfeed.

There are many ways that you can relieve the breast pain of engorgement. The easiest way to relieve engorgement is to simply feed your child as often as possible. If you are too engorged for proper latching on then you can express some milk by hand or with a breast pump. Express just enough for your baby to get a proper latch. Another method often used it to take a warm shower just before breastfeeding. The warm shower will cause enough milk to flow so that the engorgement is lessened and your baby can properly latch on. It is suggested that a lactating mother should go no longer than 3 hours between nursing sessions in order to prevent engorgement. If your baby is starting to sleep through the night this could mean waking yourself up in order to empty your breasts by either manually expressing or pumping. I know it sounds crazy to wake yourself on purpose when your baby is sleeping through the night, but if you have a continous problem with engorgement this could be just the thing to help to prevent it.

Other ways to relieve engorgement are massage, during a feeding to increase the amount of milk coming out, cool ice packs, to relieve the heat and pain, and many women even swear by cabbage leaves. You are suppose to take a nice, cool cabbage leaf and just place on the engorged breasts and somehow it’s suppose to relieve the pain and swelling. Many women who use cabbage leaves will keep a storage bag of ready leaves in their fridge so that they can just grab one and go. You can simply place it inside the bra to hold it steady on the breast.

Dry and cracked nipples are another common pain associated with breastfeeding. I had a severely cracked nipple when my second daughter was only one week old. I had never had that with my first daughter so it took me a little while to figure out what was going on. This breastfeeding pain has several causes. It can be from an improper latch, thrush in your baby’s mouth, using a breast pump wrong and very dry skin (which can be caused by soaps, lotions, perfumes). For me it was very dry skin that caused the cracked nipples.

To rid yourself of this awful breast pain, you should check your baby’s latch to make sure that everything is going well with that. Don’t use any soaps, lotions or perfumes in your nipples as they can dry out the sensitive skin. You can rub a little breast milk onto your nipples and allow them to air dry because the milk can actually heal cracked nipples. Allow your nipples to air dry as much as you possibly can. Lastly, the very best thing for cracked nipples in my opinion is lanolin. You can buy a tube of medical-grade lanolin by the name of Lansinoh. It comes in a tube and you apply it to your cracked nipples and it quickly begins to heal your cracked nipples. It’s safe and very soothing and doesn’t even require you to wash it off before breastfeeding your baby. For me the Lansinoh was a life-saver, and as a breastfeeding mother I was never without it!

The post Breast Feeding Problems appeared first on prenatalcareathome.com.

The pressure to be able to provide these things can be quite overwhelming especially if you are not in a financial position where you can provide all the latest and greatest products.

So what are the most important things we can give our children?

Touch – A baby wants the touch of its parent all the time. The best way to communicate with a baby is through touch. The soothing effect that touch can have on your baby by simply carrying them helps them feel safe with you and they recognise you through your scent heaping to soothe and calm them. Make your baby giggle with your soft tickles, all over the body, stroke their super soft hair, whatever you may do, keep touching your baby assuring that you are near always with your caring hands.

Sound – Babies love to listen. Parents should not think that the baby wouldn’t understand if you talk, because your baby hasn’t learnt a language yet. Keep talking softly, whispering and breathing your tender voice into the child’s ears. Babies with whom parents talk more have a tendency to speak very early. After all, you have to gift your child the gift of the gab which goes a long way in every walk of life in this world.

Time – Sounds simple enough…but it’s easy to just let other things get in the way of spending time with your baby. The washing can wait, does your house really need to be spotless? Finding time to spend with your little one can be difficult especially if you are a working parent or have other children to care for but spending time with your baby is important for both of you. It seems obvious but you won’t get that time back…ever… anything you miss out on cannot be re-lived!

So besides the obvious things of food and shelter the only other thing you baby needs is YOU, forget about the rest of the material stuff, you’ll get what you can and manage without the rest

The post What Are The Essentials For My Baby? appeared first on prenatalcareathome.com.

Some of my other worries about using cloth nappies are:

Are they too much extra work?

As a family of 4 with 2 children my washer works pretty hard! I do a load at least every other day. How much extra washing would cloth nappies create? However I distinctly remember that having a newborn created much more laundry itself with all the leaks on clothing/bedding, spitting up milk etc so surely it can’t be that much extra can it? But it’s not just the washing. How quickly do they dry? I live in quite a rainy, location we go months without a hint of sunshine so would I be able to air dry them in time or would my tumble dryer being working overtime?

About those leaks, will there be more?

The other main worry I have is how effective they will be. I know that disposable nappies leak at times but I worry that cloth nappies would leak more – perhaps this is more to do with my thinking that as I don’t know how to use them I would somehow be doing it ‘wrong’.

What about solid waste?

Ok so strictly speaking, even with disposable nappies you’re supposed to put the solids in the toilet. I think most packages even say that, although I don’t know that many parents obey that part (myself included), and that’s why this seems like such a big deal with cloth nappies. There is no wrapping it up and getting rid of it, you have to deal with the poop! I guess the more solid poo will just fall into the toilet with a little shake, but it’s the not so solid ones that worry me. I know that would just take a little time to get used too.

Do they stink?

The idea of having a pile of poopy nappies waiting to be washed sounds quite off putting. I  guess I know that there are obvious ways around this but I still remember the odd occasion when we put a poopy disposable in the bin rather than taking them straight outside…..quite frankly it’s not a treasured memory!!

Do you use cloth nappies? Any tips to put my mind at ease?

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I have been thinking a lot lately about nappies (a little odd maybe) for both of our children we used disposable nappies which I now kinda regret doing I am hoping to use reusables next time around. The obvious reason for this is the impact on the environment. A newborn can get through a lot of nappies say you average at at 8 changes a day, thats 56 nappies a week, 240 nappies a month which is over 2000 nappies a year!!! Thats a lot of nappies, a lot of £s and a lot of waste. Not to mention all the baby wipes, nappy sacks etc that are adding to that waste.

The problem I face now (well will face when we have another baby) is knowing what to buy. There are so many different brands of reusables and I have no idea what the differences between them all are, and I have idea what other equipment I would need (apart from a good, reliable washing machine) to help me with reusable. Oh and I wouldn’t have a clue how many I would need.

With disposables it was easy there are 2 main brands try one if they work then fine if not then try the other – I found Huggies better for my daughter and Pampers better for my son – but with so many to chose from what if I get the wrong ones?!?

What else do I need if I want to use reusable nappies?

Which brands would you recommend and why?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!

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Sometimes “term” babies are actually premature and end up in the NICU. Sometimes early babies are fine. Other times, a postdates (42+ weeks) baby can have some problems or stress, and sometimes they are totally normal and healthy.

So how accurate are due dates? And why does it matter?

For me I had a rough idea of when I was due which was then confirmed by my ultrasound (I was not far off with my guess). But what if what you are told is wrong? Measuring your growing baby is all well and good, but surely they all grow at different rates? Birth weights of term babies vary widely so surely they can’t all be the same size at 12 weeks can they?

If you’re scheduling an induction or cesarian based on your due date, what happens if your due date calculation was wrong? What if your baby is not quite ready yet?

Our daughter was born at 40weeks 0 days, I went into labour naturally, and she was quite a small baby at 6lb6. Our son was born at 40weeks 3 days, again I went into labour naturally, but was scheduled to have a sweep on the previous day but I was already in labour. Thinking back I was just told that this would happen, I was just 2 days over my ‘Due Date’ at that point – not long at all but what if my dates were wrong? What if he wasn’t ready? He was a much bigger bay at 8lb10.

Should we just do as we are told by the Drs/midwifes etc? How hard would it be to challenge them if they wanted us to have an induction? As long as baby is happy and healthy why can’t he/she stay in there until they’re ready?

Should we have a “due month”? I know by that point we are all anxious to meet our babies but why is it that baby must be out by 42weeks?

What do you think? Are inductions/sweeps just thrust upon us too soon?

The post Are You Really Overdue? appeared first on prenatalcareathome.com.

Figuring out when/if you should go back to work can be very difficult and as a new mum is one of the toughest decision to make. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the factors you have to consider: What’s best for the baby? What’s best for you? Can you afford to stay home? Who will care for your baby if you don’t? There are no right or wrong answers and you are the only person who can decide what is right for you and your family.

I read somewhere the other day that the first six weeks after giving birth, is considered the ‘normal’ length of ‘disability’ leave following delivery. There is no way I could have gone back to work after 6 weeks, I was still walking around in a zombified state due to lack of sleep and sheer exhaustion at that point, i’m quite sure that nobody in their right mind would have wanted me dealing with their finances/bank accounts in that state!

Whether you’ve had 2 months off or 2 years off, returning to work can be a very emotional time that comes with conflicting feelings – feeling guilty about leaving your baby, excitement about getting your old life back, guilt that you’re feeling relieved to be away from your baby, missing your baby, and worrying if you remember how to do your job. All these emotions are completely normal!

So should you go back to work?

It’s a tough one. Today you think you should, yesterday you could never imagine doing so, and the next day it might seem impossible!

I have done both, when I had my daughter I returned to work when she was 5 months old due to a lack of options really – I had rent/bills to pay and needed to go back to work. I was very fortunate to have a flexible job at the time and was able to work evenings and weekends and still got to spend my days with her. As she got older and our situation changed we needed to put her in nursery for 4 days a week, we didn’t really have any other options at the time and it was very difficult at first – more for me than her, she loved it! The worst part was missing a lot of her milestones like her first steps and not being the one to teach her and help her development.

When we had our son a few years later I was due to return to work after a year off but I knew deep down that I really didn’t want to. I made it as far a my return to work interview and was all set to go back until the day before I was due to return, my husband sensed how I was feeling and told me that if I wanted to stay at home we would manage financially and that he fully supported my choice. So I did! I was a stay at home mum until not long after he turned 4 and started school, it was hard at times but was definitely worth it, I didn’t miss a single milestone and as his main educator I know that he was being raised the way that my husband and I wanted. Now all I have to feel guilty about is not doing the same for our daughter!!

Just as no two babies are the same,  no mums situations are the same. So when the time comes for you to decide what’s right for you, ignore the peer pressure (trust me everyone will have an opinion on what you should do) and talk about it with your partner. Whether you decide to stay-at-home, work full or part-time, juggling it all can be tough but you’ll manage – it’s what mums do best!

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With the widespread campaigns for ‘reuse,reduce,recycle’ surely we could all do a bit more by buying eco sanitary products. At first I was a little unsure, the thought of reusing and washing my own sanitary products rather than just throwing them away was VERY off-putting. But then a few years ago when our council first introduced our various recycling bins, the idea of cleaning out all my used tins and bottles and sorting the household waste was quite off putting also, but now it is second nature and I do it without even thing about it!

The Mooncup is a reusable menstrual cup, around two inches long and made from soft medical grade silicone. It is worn internally a lot lower than a tampon but, while tampons and pads absorb menstrual fluid, the Mooncup collects it. This means it doesn’t cause dryness or irritation, and also that it collects far more (three times as much as a ‘super-absorbent’ tampon’!). Because the Mooncup is reusable, you only need one so it saves you money and helps the environment, too. The initial outlay of buying these products may seem a little high at first (around £20.00), but if you combine the cost of a couple of months sanitary products you have met the cost!

I would imagine that the change to reusables would be difficult for some of the squeamish at first, but lets be honest, we’ve probably all dealt with worse sights out of nappies. Whilst we are in the mindset of reducing our waste and recycling when possible we could have a great impact on this by reducing our sanitary waste. I also started to wonder how people managed in the past and in poorer countries where disposable products were/are not available? If they can manage then why can’t we?

There are other reusable products out there but I know little about them. If you would like more information please visit the Mooncup website.

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